Welcome!

I hope you enjoy my blog, a collection of articles and thoughts regarding my interests. I'm a married father of two that loves to write about gliding, hunting, fishing, camping and any outdoor passion. Oh yah, I'm a quadriplegic. I hope this is informative to some, entertaining to others, and interesting to all. Let me know what you think. If you'd like an article for your publication, I've got words I haven't even used yet!

Thursday 13 August 2015

Quad Flyin' a Quad




This thing is a freaking blast! Once it is set up to know where home is, you simply give it some power and up it goes! Pushing forward on the right stick makes it fly forward, pulling back to fly backwards, right stick right, right stick left, and it slides that unit right and left. Left on the left stick rotates left, right on the left stick rotates right, easy! Helicopter? Nope, a quad copter!

Last Christmas I received a Phantom 2 quad copter from my wife (I'm so happy ... I promise to say nice things about her for three days!), I couldn't have asked for anything better! We (myself and my sweet lovely thoughtful wife, did I mention I would say nice things for three days?) easily adapted the transmitter with a couple of short broom handles, so that I can control it with my paws. Then we (my sweetheart and I)  pulled out the old book-reading-tray that was built to fit my gun rack on my wheelchair, and away we (guess who?) went!

You don't really have to know how to fly an aircraft to handle one of these quad copters. All you do (after your sweet lady buys you the ultimate gift of all time, a quad copter) is you set it on the ground with your transmitter turned on, then you turn on the battery for the quad copter and wait for the lights to turn green as this signals that it has found enough GPS satellites to find its way home. Then you calibrate the compass with a few simple maneuvers from your lovely thoughtful bubbly helper (who lets on like she would rather do nothing else but fly things), turn on the camera and your screen and away you go! If you get flustered you can always let go of the control sticks and it will stop where it is, in space, and just hover there! When the battery level gets low it will automatically take over, come back and land safely where you took off from, cool!

This thing will take HD video using its GoPro camera, flies for about 20 minutes, and you can watch the whole thing on a screen while you are doing it! What a hoot! Can you imagine receiving a gift that would top this? I cannot! How thoughtful! I guess it might be a bit of an invasion of privacy at times (and it is very much appreciated when your significant other points it out in her subtle way), but you just have to be responsible about where and how you fly it.

If you want to know more about how this works, and how easy it is to fly for a quadriplegic (or anybody), just send me an email and check out my YouTube page! End of day 1.

My Youtube channel is https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCO8B5KVptDLln4h9tLE44Dg